‘Now Playing’ show Highlights Independent Music on CPT12

Tim Wenger | June 1, 2015

Over the past few years, the music scene here in Denver has been fortunate enough to gain a handful of local TV programs focused on promoting the music community and the artists that make it happen. Denver Film Compay and founding members of local microbrew stars Black Shirt Brewing have been running a show called Now Playing, which just aired their fifth episode. CMB caught up with founders Marty Jones and DFC’s Gabriel Dohrn to get the lowdown on the program and what is upcoming.

CMB: You guys are working with Black Shirt Brewing, KGNU, and Denver Film Company. That’s a pretty good sponsor list, what is the show doing that is attracting so much attention?

NP: The show was actually founded by members of Black Shirt Brewing Co & Denver Film Co as a side project – one filled with all of our passions. Early episodes were filmed at the brewery with Denver Film Co’s equipment and crew, then post-production was all handled by Denver Film Co. Almost immediately, we decided that we couldn’t have a world-class show without world-class sound and so we partnered with Evergroove Studio in Evergreen to run the live sound, as well as record, mix, and master for our episodes. The result is a team of highly skilled and passionate people working together on a show that we all believe in.

CMB: Give us the background on the program and how you all came to work together.

NP: Gabe of Denver Film Co & I (Branden Miller – head brewer and co-owner of Black Shirt) are best friends and have been for years. We dreamed this idea up because we believe there is a major movement happening in the Denver music scene and we don’t believe anyone is truly capturing it and telling its story. Additionally, we believe that the Denver music scene ties directly into the food, drink, art, and culture of our city. We see these as very important pieces of the city, and things that should be celebrated. That is our mission.

CMB: How does your season structure work? How many episodes, how many seasons, etc?

NP: Right now we’re releasing 8 episodes a season, we have 2 seasons done, and the 3^rd season is in post production. Many bands have 2 shows created about them. There is so much story to tell, and great music to hear, that we found that 1 half hour episode just didn’t do bands justice. Working with 2 episodes, we can bring out different aspects of a band in each episode, and tell a grander story. For Covehoven, the first episode focused on his upbringing, and the family cabin his grandfather built by hand. The cabin itself is named Covenhoven. The second episode focused on his collaboration within the Denver community, which included a music collaboration and a beer collaboration.

CMB: Anybody you haven’t had on the show yet that you are shooting for as a guest?

NP: I’ll speak for myself and say that Devotchka was a big goal of ours from the very start, and a band that I thought we’d have a hard time being able to include. That has already happened for us, and that episode will be a part of Season 3. That really boosted our confidence in the project and has given us a feeling that we can successfully capture the story of any band, and it’s allowed us to approach large names in the scene as well as really small, grassroots type bands. Without dropping a bunch of names, I’d say it’s become more important for us to tell the whole story, not just the bands that we might have a preference for or might be listening to at the time. We’re looking to get outside of the rock, folk, singer-songwriter, and bluegrass bands that have encompassed the show so far and also include the hip hop, electronic, dance scene as well as so much more. Like I said, telling the whole story is more important than personal preference.

CMB: Where does the show air?

NP: Currently it shows on Colorado Public Television (CPT12) on Saturdays at 10:00 pm; we also show them on Saturdays at 8:00 pm in the tap room at the brewery (3719 Walnut St – in the RiNo neighborhood). Along with that, we have our own YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/NowPlayingBSB), Facebook page where we link videos, and through the social media outlets of our other businesses – Black Shirt Brewing Co and Denver Film Co.